


Soothe

by vodkastinger



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 03:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10481529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkastinger/pseuds/vodkastinger
Summary: "I'd be standing up there, digging my fingernails into my palms to keep myself awake" (despite the summary, fluff and domesticity)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I might have exaggerated a bit the consequences of digging one's nails into one's palm for a whole week, but I've tried it for ten minutes and it sure left some marks so...  
> Please enjoy! Despite my best efforts, still not a native speaker :P so that tumblr anon tired of foreigners writing Billary can go read elsewhere.

February 23rd 2009

Bill entered their bedroom to find Hillary fast asleep. She had been away on her first trip as Secretary of State and had just concluded her weeklong visit to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China. According to her Service agents she had been at home for nearly four hours before he had finally reached Chappaqua too, and it seemed like she had spent the better part of them sleeping.

He gave her a once-over: disheveled and matted hair, crumpled shirt and pants -the grey trousers clearly half of the pantsuit completed by the jacket at the foot of their bed-, mixed jewelry and rings still on.  
It definitely looked like she had collapsed on the bed immediately after she had come home and she had just been too tired to do anything else than grab his own cushion and hold it in a tight embrace, burying her face in it to smell his lingering scent.  
She probably would prefer to hug the genuine article, he thought, and although he felt bad at the perspective of waking her up, he thought she would get uncomfortable in the next few hours if she kept sleeping in those clothes and her underwired bra. How could she fall asleep in that thing in the first place was a mystery to him; he obviously didn't have first hand experience with it, but from the sighs of relief Hillary had uttered whenever she removed one of those entrapments after a long day, he surmised those bras must be uncomfortable to wear for a long time, so to still be sporting that to bed -he thought- she must have been really tired indeed.  
He gently moved a lock of hair away from her face and drank in her lovely and peaceful expression, all of her features relaxed in the respite provided by sleep. He caressed her soft cheeks, following the profile of her jaw with the back of his finger and then he playfully brushed the point of his index against the tip of her nose. As an automatic reaction, she scrunched it in a very endearing expression and he let out an amused low chuckle in response. She was just so cute, he thought.  
She was lingering on the doors of consciousness and he tenderly started to rub his large hands over her arms in caressing circles, because he wanted to wake her up gently and not be scared by his unexpected presence there.  
She uttered some incoherent mutterings, even gave a little sleepy grunt, but then finally she started to come out of her slumber.

  
"Hi sweetie" he said in a cajoling tone, placing his hand once again on her cheek, feeling the drowsy warmth that radiated from it. He thumbed her brow and pressed the back of his hand on her cheek, while his eyes were captured by her gem blue irises, their expression looking so young in the vulnerabile mix of exhaustion and tenderness that transpired from them. That soft gaze she sometimes got, in occasions like this one when she was just worn out, reminded him of the tired happiness she had displayed on the day Chelsea was born, after she had managed to get the whole day's sleep.  
Chelsea had been born well past 11PM, so after the exhausting C-section and after making sure Bill was watching their baby closely, Hillary had finally allowed herself to collapse and when she had woken up to nurse their baby, she had a tender expression that could rival Michelangelo's Pietà and made his heart swell with awe and reverence towards her. The same type of heart swell he felt right now, taking in her ruffled hair and the way she was snuggled against his pillow, almost like a pup seeking for warm cuddles in the cushion that smelled of him.  
Getting teary-eyed because of all the tenderness rushing through him, he kissed her mouth softly, feeling her lips mold pliantly to his, staying connected way longer than a simple peck. She quietly inhaled a long breath through her nose, then, reluctantly, she withdrew from the kiss to blow out a relieved little sigh, that just made him want to kiss her again, his tongue now gently exploring her mouth, slow drags and warm breath as they both felt a true peace of mind settle on them. They stayed like that, staring in each other's eyes and exchanging wet sounding kisses for a while, really wanting to taste this perfect moment of happiness in their busy lives.  
He felt like his heart was going to burst with all the love he felt for her, with all the pride he was flooded with, now that the whole world had seen her in action on this first trip. He knew she was the Secretary of State, so she didn't need any ulterior advertising of her obvious qualities, but if it were for him, he would have been there on a stage somewhere, standing behind her while she delivered a speech, to point at her and tell to whomever would listen: "That's my girl!! Isn't she the smartest? Look at her! She's just so good, so good! I'm so proud of her!"

  
He distanced himself fractionally: had he continued to stare at her eyes and kiss her like that, he surely would have started to cry in earnest just for the utter magnitude of all of her: her love for their people, for their family, for him. He was in awe that such a tiny person could be overflowing with all this love and he felt overwhelmed himself just at the thought.  
He ran his hands down her arms and came to squeeze her hands with his: so small compared to his, they always elicited a tenderness and a sense of protectiveness when he enveloped them in his large ones, when he fid so full of devotion, or just when he held them going about their day or crossing the road.

 

 _"Ow"_  
She had tried to stifle her exclamation, but he had heard it and he immediately got concerned: a question clear in his eyes, he brought her hands closer to his face to inspect them better. He looked at one side and then flipped them to glance at her palms: her left hand was full of tiny red marks on the palm and a couple of deeper cuts were etched in the soft patch of skin between her thumb and her index finger.  
He started at her questioningly.  
"Hill, what's this?" His voice was suddenly decided, almost harsh and she took on a guilty expression.  
"Oh, don't... it's nothing really... "  
" _Hillary?_ I'm not stupid, you know? What happened here? "  
She took in a breath, steadying herself for the berating that was coming, then she started: "Well... I didn't have much time to adjust to all the time differences during this trip, because I visited so many countries in such a short time and... and I was almost falling asleep on some very important people, so I had to keep awake and... Bill, I didn't know how to do it, so I dug my nails in my hand and just powered through the whole week. I just shook hands with the right and nobody really cared about my left, it never comes up in those "meet and greet" pictures anyway and I can easily hide it so... "  
His mouth was now set in a thin line, his hands were still holding hers limply and he was fractionally shaking his head, signing "no".  
He stood up from the side of the bed where he was sitting and just walked out of the room leaving her speechless.  
"Bill, Bill! Please! Tell me... don't go away like this!" she made to sit up from the bed when his voice came from another room: "Don't move, stay there. I'm just gonna get somethin' and then I'll come back there".  
She could hear some rummaging and shortly thereafter she saw him come back with a small tube, a roll of gauze and some other medical equipment.  
"Oh, Bill, don't be ridicu... "  
"Hillary no. I know you don't want to, but even if the cuts on your palm seem alright, those ones on the back of your hand worry me. It's just precautionary and you have nothing to lose in just a bit of antiseptic cream, so don't protest and let me do it. It makes me worry less, ok? And you've been a week abroad going around God knows where, shaking hands and whatnot, you could have picked up anything through those cuts. A little bit of ointment won't do much, but it makes me sleep better, ok?"  
She didn't protest, she just nodded and overcame her initial reluctance. She could see how bothered he had been by her behavior and, though she wanted to look into the matter more, she decided to wait sometime until he was calmer.  
He had washed his hands in the sink and had fetched the items to treat her cuts. He was probably overreacting, but it was the gesture that was significant to him. He was always going to take care of her - physically and emotionally, whether others had mistreated her or she had "punished" herself once again for some perceived flaw- and this was no exception.

  
He uncapped the disinfectant bottle and squeezed some of the pungent smelling liquid on a pressed cotton disk he then proceeded to swab over her palm with concentrated care. He then took another disk and repeated the operation on those fewer, deeper cuts on the back of her hand. She flinched fractionally when he passed with the liquid over the cuts and his heart sank a bit.  
Yes, being Secretary of State was dangerous, so he shouldn't really fret about something so small but... but it was the concept, this dogged self-sacrifice ideal that plagued Hillary, this feeling in the back of her head, born both out of her infancy and her demanding father and out of years of campaign attacks, that if she wasn't somehow hurting, she wasn't doing it right. And the symbolism of curing those cuts, saying to her that no, that wasn't the way to do it, that she didn't have to suffer, was something he was determined to make transpire from his actions.  
When he was finished with the disinfectant, he opened the small tube of antibiotic cream and squeezed some of it on a freshly opened square of gauze, using it to distribute the ointment on her hand. He then put a fresh square of gauze on her cuts to pack the wounds and started to maneuver the roll of gauze around her hand to wrap her palm in it, crossing it to leave out her thumb, all of it always with that intense and serious gaze.

She studied his expression and she wondered at his expertise, his determination to keep the medication as sterile as possible even despite the limited materials he was working with, she questioned why he was so good and knew exactly how he had to crisscross the gauze to maximize her comfort and she wondered if he had had to do the same for worse, scarier cuts for his mother, now almost a lifetime ago.  
Waves of emotions washed over her at the sight of the tender care he was displaying on his face while he worked, mixed with that concentration and undivided attention she had always found so attractive. His elegant hands doing a quick work of fixing the bandage were hypnotic in the flourishes they were tracing through the air. A mix of desire, longing and emotional vulnerability was overcoming her and when he finished and she locked her eyes with his, her choked "Thank you" was almost heartbreaking for all that it conveyed, though unspoken.

  
He gingerly took her small hands in his large ones and he kissed the back of each hand, the first one softly, as he was kissing it better, while he lingered longer on the second one, turning it on the other side and kissing the palm too, while looking at her through hooded eyes.  
"Never, ever, do this again, promise? And I'm not talking just about your hand, I'm talking... " he gulped down half a sob "... I'm talking about mistreating you for all of _them_. I know you love this country Hillary, but I definitely love you more than I do them. It's always been like this and I want you to remember it, ok?"  
Her eyes glistening with unshed tears, she nodded and he stretched next to her to squeeze her in a warm embrace, their emotions rolling down with the sparse tears on their faces.  
After they had quieted down, he took her chin between two fingers and kissed her deeply, smiling, caressing her cheeks and going deep with his tongue, twining it with hers, sucking her lower lip and just sighing elated at the thought of finally sharing the same country, bed, air, with her.  
His sweet kisses were a balm to her soul, the reason why she came back home, her silver haired knight always ready to sooth everything, to protect her from everyone, sometimes even from herself.

  
Their effusions were taking on a different tone, though: if they had had a tinge of desperation before, now they were shifting towards relishment and a vein of pure desire was emerging in the long drags of Bill's tongue and the small nips he occasionally gave to her neck. She was twining her fingers with his and admiring their slender elegance, while he inhaled the smell of her hair and kissed her forehead, then he went to play with her bracelet, while still resting his cheek against her forehead. He brought her hand to his mouth to kiss each one of her fingers and she felt a jolt of desire through her body: "Help me undress?"she asked shyly, turning her face towards his. His hot stare betrayed the unasked question. She kissed him deeply while moving their joined hands towards the hem of her shirt, to slide his fingers under it to caress her buttery flank and end up cupping and squeezing one of her breasts through her bra.  
"Can you help me undress?" she whispered again.

He breathed in her same air, felt the same longing for connection. And breathed out: "Yes".

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are love and make authors happy <3


End file.
